According to The Hollywood Reporter, The Weinstein Co. has acquired rights to produce an animated feature based on the Jerry Lewis comedy classic, The Nutty Professor. Lewis will reportedly lend his voice to at least two characters in the pic, which will be produced and animated by Mainframe Ent. for home video distribution through Weinstein subsidiary Genius Products Inc.
The Nutty Professor was one of several features Lewis wrote, directed, and starred in for Paramount Pictures during the height of his popularity in the 1960s. Lewis, who owns rights to the material, licensed it to Universal for the hit 1996 remake starring Eddie Murphy, which spawned a less successful sequel in 2000.
In both versions of the film, a nerdy professor named Julius Kelp invents a potion that turns him into a handsome ladies’ man named Buddy Love. The animated version will apparently go back to the original but will have Kelp’s college-aged grandson coming across grandpa’s formula.
The script is being written by Evan Spiliotopoulos, who wrote Pooh’s Heffalump Movie and Mickey, Donald, Goofy: The Three Musketeers, and is also scripting Disney’s Tinker Bell movie and is adapting the The Shadow Thieves book series for Disney Channel. George Paige is producing with Lewis and Mainframe’s Gregory R. Little and Rick Mischel serving as exec producers. Eric Robinson will oversee for Weinstein Co.
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